Yeah I am filmming it. So I don't know, how else to write it, as it's a matter of logic for the story VS. special effects and budget.

Even though fire cannot gurantee to destroy all the prints, DNA and forensics, it is still the best, most hopeful way, isn't it?

Also what if I just found a guy who could create CGI fire maybe, convincingly?

The articles that you linked mostly talk about fire not being able to make a dead body unidentifiable though. Where as in my story, the killer isn't worried about the police not finding out who the body is. The killer is worried about his own physical evidence being there. So the fire might destroy his own, like fingerprints, a hair left at the scene for example. Wouldn't it? So as long as the fire can destroy that, than he is in the clear and it doesn't matter if the body is identified, cause he cannot be proven to have been there. However, the killer in this case, is a police detective, so he would have the knowledge to beat his own system from his own work and experiences.

I just have to figure out how a pro would. However, in this case, the killer kills a guy by accident, and not intended. So he has to cover up the evidence that he was there, without whatever resources he has there, since it was not a pre-planned crime, which makes it tricky.

As a writer (storyteller) it is your JOB to create an MC that the audience attaches themselves to emotionally, and then run this MC through a series of events that are plausible. These events make up your plot - the reason this character is in this situation at this point in their life, and how they resolve it in a manner the audience wholly accepts as true.

Your cop, who I take to be your main character, accidently kills someone in a shootout. This someone just happens to have cans of gas in his or her car. Per your notes, there is some kind of history here of using gas to cover up crime scenes?

My first thought is, the cop is in a shootout, which mans someone is shooting at the cop.

Am I right so far?

This someone happens to have a car full of gas cans, so they are likely a CRIMINAL WITH A GUN INVOLVED IN A SHOOTOUT WITH A COP.

Still right?

A shootout means bullets from both parties are missing their target and going ..... somewhere. After the shootout is over, your cop wants to cover up the scene.

Why? This sounds like a legal action so far. But, for whateveer reason, this cop (or detective) decides to use the perp's own criminal evidence to erase the fact he was there. So he starts a fire.

I am curious how this fire will erase bullet holes and dings in the surrounding buildings, magically burn eveery casing and fragment, and on down the line. Must be one hell of a big fire.

I assume this cop's car is parked far enough away not to be hit by bullets or get burned?

No witnesses via vison or hearing?

No footage?

Has the time to do all this? Did he or she call a time out?

I am going to also assume this is one scene in a longer story?

As a writer, you need to think scenarios through backwards and forwards, searching for the minutia that can call your story's plausibility into question. This - and your other thread on the gang story - is so full of glaring holes and bad patch jobs to make it just plain ridiculous.

Stop throwing what ifs out there for the forum to resolve for you, and take the time to think the story through. My guess is that you have a pet scene you just don't want to walk away from, and will perform whatever magic is needed to keep it in the film.

Toss both your ideas and start fresh.

And don't say 'Okay, thanks, but what if ....' START OVER ON A NEW IDEA!!

The is a reason why the cop cannot report it. Earlier in the story, the cop blackmails a computer hacker into hacking into a lawyer's personal information to find out who a certain client is that is paying the lawyer. After that, the cop starts stalking the client on his own time. It leads into him getting in the middle of shootout, he didn't see coming.

Basically if he tells his superiors that he was following the suspect around, his superiors are going to ask him, who this person is to the cop, and why was the cop following him. Since the police were never investigating this person before.

The MC cannot tell his superiors that he blackmailed a hacker, into hacking the suspect's lawyer's information and say that he found out who the suspect was that way. Because then the police cannot arrest the suspect in the shootout, cause the MC's word is no longer credible, cause he violated the suspect's fourth amendment rights. He would then be a tainted witness, and the suspect would not be able to be arrested and charged, cause it would be fruit of the poisonous tree.

So the MC does not want to be a tainted witness, and legally taint the whole case. He could lie and say that he was in that location for a completely different reason, but if word ever got out that he hacked into the lawyer's information to find out the ID of the suspect, it would taint the whole case. This is what the police told me, when I was researching legalities for my story.

So the cop has to wipe away, all evidence that he was there, so the case can remain untainted, and the police could therefore, never prove that he was there, as a result of illegal hacking.

This is what the police told me he would have to do, so the case would not be ruined, if any evidence leads back to him being there, and they were trying to prove that he discovered who the suspect was through hacking. By wiping away that he was there, he could deny ever knowing the suspect, and the police would not have enough for the case to be tainted, since they couldn't prove he was there, as a result of violating the suspect's fourth amendment rights through hacking.

So the MC has to erase any evidence that he was there. The police can have a murder, but it cannot lead back to him, otherwise the MC just gets painted into a legal corner. So the cop was going rogue pretty much and is already guilty of blackmail and hacking felonies, and cannot leave any evidence that he was there as a result.

I can have witnesses maybe hear the gunshots and call the police, but I do not want witnesses to see any of it. It can be in a secluded area therefore. No video footage either. Basically I want the police to investigate the villains for the killing and the not the MC. But I don't want the police to ever find out the MC was there.

As far as the story being full of glaring holes, which holes do you mean? I basically want the MC to kill someone by accident and then cover it up. I don't want to have holes to patch, but I want to write a story, where accidents happen, and people cover them up, successfully, without their decisions being pre-planned. I want them to be able to dig themselves, into holes but to also dig themselves out after and solve their problems. Is that possible?

As for letting the police find everything and then going into a lab to destroy all that evidence later, how would that work? You also say that I should throw away this pet idea, the pet idea being the MC frames the villains for a murder, but is that idea so illogical that it won't work?

1. The case would not go to him, so the lab people are going to wonder why he went there, unless he is working on another case, that is being done in the same lab. So wouldn't that be a big convenient coincidence?

2. If evidence from a murder, is all of a sudden altered, wouldn't the lab people suspect something has been changed, and look at the camera footage of the lab, to see who was in there last?

I haven't seen Dexter, so I don't know how he did it. But I thought it would be less complicated if he destroyed the crime scene, before it reaches the labs.

Basically for my story, I wanted the MC to be so desperate and determine to nail the villains, that he ends up framing them for a killing that they didn't commit. The whole let the ends justify the means type theme. But I don't want the MC to go out and murder a person in cold blood for this to happen. I can't see him going that far. So I though the could kill someone by accident or something and then frame the villains for it. And since the MC is already guilty of hacking and blackmail, he has a reason to not want to have to be caught with that later. So he has a reason to not have any evidence of him being at any crime scenes that the villain was at also... according to the police I asked when researching. So basically for the story to go where I want and have the MC frame the villain for murder and let the ends justify the means, the MC has to get someone killed accidentally, and then get the motivation to frame the villain as a result.

As for glaring plot holes, which ones do you mean? Is it the other thread with the evidence buried in the ground, is that it?

there are going to ask him more questions that that. they are going to ask why was he there originally for one thing, in which case he would have to make up lies. If the police find out that he hacked into the villain's personal information, they could subpeona him to appear before a grand jury, where the prosecutor can ask him any question he wants. If the cop takes the fifth or lies, and then gets caught in the lie, the whole case will become tainted.

The cop figures it's best to not let the police know he was there, and just frame the villains for the killing instead.

If the cop says he was there cause he was going for a stroll, or something and saw suspicious behavior, and then shot the wrong person by accident, he still doesn't want to get fired, or get into trouble for shooting the wrong person. So he still has to get rid of all that evidence that leads to him shooting the wrong person first. By the time it takes for him to do that, they are going to wonder what took him so long after the gunshots happened, before he called it in. If he says he was there, they might ask him why after the shootout, he allowed the mystery killers to cover up all the evidence after. Maybe he could say he was scared from the gunfire and ran away.

But then why did it take him so long to call it in after, since he was really cleaning up his own killing. There are just too many holes the prosecutor and police are going to pick at, if he says he was there, but blamed the killing on the other villains. Where as if he doesn't call it in at all, and takes away all the evidence of him being there, he doesn't have to tell lie after lie, after lie, and be caught in a lie possibly later, with all the questions they could ask him that wouldn't add up in answers.

He can't just say:

Quote:

"I saw suspicisious behaviour, but wasn't sure. Before I knew it I was in a shoot out."

Police and prosecutors ask a lot more questions than just that one, and it's not that simple.

lying to the grand jury means having to get on a witness stand, go on the record, and the prosecutor can ask any questions he wants. which means being caught in a lie possibly.

so the cop figures it's just better and less risky, if he makes it look like he wasn't at the scene at all, so he doesn't have to fill out a report and answer investigators questions and be caught in a lie, or be caught in a lie on the record, at a grand jury. basically actually reporting it and then having to testify later, means telling more lies, and therefore, more chances of being caught in lie, as oppose to wiping out all the physical evidence originally. that lie, if done right, will not have to lead to so many more lies later, and complicating things further.

Plus the MC doesn't want to be blamed for shooting the innocent person. This means that he would have to remove the bullets from the dead person's body and clean up his shell casings, along with the other shots he fired.

If he says he was going for a stroll, minding his own business, and then say a shoot out happened, they are going to ask him how did the person who got shot, happen to have the bullets disappear from his body? If he was there and saw the shoot out, they are going to ask him how the bullets disappeared from the body.

He could say "The shooters, must havea dug the bullets out of the body while I was in a shootout with them" But this means he would have seen it. It could lead to being caught in a lie. Plus if he gets any of his own DNA or his prints on the dead body, while digging the bullets out, he still has to get rid of that evidence from the dead body, to show he didn't lean over it to dig the bullets out.

So it's going to look fishy that during the shootout, the other villains had time to dig the bullets out and wipe out other physical evidence, but at the same time, were in a shootout with the MC. It just leaves too many variables for him to tell in his story, that would overcomplicate things for him, rather than wipe out that he was ever there originally. Unless of course the MC can get rid of his bullets from the body, and wipe out any evidence that suggests he messed around with the dead body, and then call it in and say he was there, and say that it was the shooters who dug the bullets out?

Isn't it just simpler and less complicated of a lie for the MC to disappear all the evidence that links him being there originally, so he won't have to answer to so much later, if he reports it?

...........
Police and prosecutors ask a lot more questions than just that one, and it's not that simple.

And if all their interrogations were a succes every police movie or episode of a police series would end right after the first interview.

Yes, I know they will ask more than 1 question. I just summarized it for you.
I'm sure they won't ask: "Did you blackmail someone to hack a lawyer's computer to find out where you can find the suspect?"

Mara is right: everything is already a lie.
Did you ever watch The Shield?
Vic Mackey was the embodiment of a walking lie.
Dexter is another example of someone trying to get out of his own mess with lies and deception.
Ever watched Luther? He crossed the line many times to solve the case or save his ass.

The bigger question is: why was he shot at? <- THIS is what the debriefing will be about.
And how did he end up killing the wrong person? That is the real problem he has at the moment. Not the hack.

He could aways lie that he got a tip from the dead person :p

You try to paint your character in a corner, but you are only painting yourself in a corner of unbelievably construed and illogical constructions.
Again you are thinking there is only one solution for the problem you created AND that you already have found the solution, eventhough it doesn't really work yet.
Dead horse management.

What if I wrote it so that the villains who he was following at the time, happened to have cans of gasoline in their cars. Earlier in the story, the villains used and spread gasoline all over everything to cover up their crime. So perhaps the main character can think of before, when the villains had gasoline, then run over to one of their cars that they left behind to see if the brought gas cans this time. And it turns out they have them. The MC get the gas out, pours it all over the crime scene and burn it. So all of the MC's prints and DNA are burned in the crime scene.

Then he can get rid of his shoes later, and never wear them again so his shoe prints will not be traced back to him. Is that better?

If he can conceivably gain access to the villain's car at some point, could he not retrieve another firearm from said car? As surely he'd be a complete idiot to carry his police-issue firearm during legally-questionable activities?

Okay thanks. I can have him admit that he killed the wrong person, but the character still wants to stay on the case, and finish it. He also wants to frame the villains for the wrong person being killed. He figures that since he is unable to nab the villains on past crimes, he can frame them for the current homicide, and hope they get caught that way.

If he confesses to killing the wrong guy by accident, he will be fired, or at least suspended for a long time, and cannot act as a cop anymore, which he doesn't want, when it comes to wanting to bring down the villains.

I could have him bring another fire arm, if that helps. However, it was pointed out before, that the cop would not think to bring his own gloves ahead of time, just in case he painted himself into a corner and needed them. So would he think this far ahead, and think that he might need to bring an untraceable gun, just in case, crap hit the fan this much?

Also, if he had his police issue firearm on him, what he could do is be ready to shoot, whoever comes around the corner that is hunting him, the wrong person comes around the corner, and he shoots the wrong person. He then checks to see, and sees that he killed the wrong person. He hears the real villains coming, and then decides to take the gun from the wrong person (since the wrong person is also a cop who is also tailing the villain's he has a pistol), and uses that person's gun to shoot back against the villains, and defend himself.

So therefore, the dead cop's bullets are shot around the crime scene, and he gets the villains to run away, and escape the gunfire. He then digs his own bullets out of the dead cop, gets rid of his prints, his two shell casings and DNA and runs away. Is that better, since no more of his bullets are around the scene?

Quote:

He could aways lie that he got a tip from the dead person :p

He could say this, but then he would have to say he was at the scene, and will need a story as to why during the shootout, the villains were able to dig their bullets out of the dead body, before or after the dead person gave the MC the tip. If the MC says he was there, and then later it comes out that he blackmailed a hacker, then MC's testimony will be considered fruit of the poisonous tree though, since he discovered the villains identity, through hacking, and therefore, the testimony to his ID is inadmissible.

Putting myself in the MC's shoes, I think it would be better to not say I was there at all, so no fruit of the poisonous tree can hurt the case after. That is just what I would do in the MC's shoes. So shouldn't I apply my own logic somewhat to the character?'

And I haven't seen Dexter, or Luther but I saw some of the first season of The Shield. I think that Vic Mackey would prefer to wipe out any evidence of him being there at all, rather than admitting to it and coming up with an alternate story when he can just wipe away prints, DNA and casings to begin with. But that's just what I think.

[QUOTEThe bigger question is: why was he shot at? <- THIS is what the debriefing will be about.
And how did he end up killing the wrong person? That is the real problem he has at the moment. Not the hack.][/QUOTE]

The reason why he was shot at is cause the villain found out that someone has been hacking into his computer to get information. So the villain decided to go to a secluded area, since he figured the MC might be surveying him. He gets the MC all alone, so he can shoot him and kill him, since the MC is poking his nose too much.

The MC ended up killing the wrong person cause the wrong person who showed up, was another cop was surveying the villain. But the other cop was not on an official assignment. Like the MC, the other cop was also doing it on his own time, and didn't tell anyone. But the MC doesn't know why the other cop was there. He also cannot tell the police that the reason why he was being shot at by the villain, was because he hacked into the villains computer. Otherwise he is admitting to the hacking and will get kicked off the case, and have no control at that point, and get kicked off the force. His goal is to bring the villain's down, so he cannot tell the truth about the reason he is shot at is cause the villain discovered that his computer was hacked. He could say he was following the villain, but then he would have to make up another reason as to why he was, other than the hacking.

What if I wrote it so that during the chase, when the villain is going after the MC, to silence him, the MC is about to shoot the villains, when they come around the corner, but shoots the other cop instead by accident, then takes the cop's gun and uses that cops gun to shoot at the villains, and make the villains go away. He then removes his two bullets from the dead cop, so no one knows it was him who shot the dead cop. He gets rid of his shell casings as well.

At this point, he can get rid of his prints or DNA, and never say he was part of that shootout, or he can say he was but make up a story as to how, during the shootout, the villains managed to remove the two bullets from the dead cop.

I could have him bring another fire arm, if that helps. However, it was pointed out before, that the cop would not think to bring his own gloves ahead of time, just in case he painted himself into a corner and needed them. So would he think this far ahead, and think that he might need to bring an untraceable gun, just in case, crap hit the fan this much?

Because if he finds himself carrying out an off-book operation that could get him in trouble if identified, and also potentially needs a weapon to carry out that operation, then if he's got any sense whatsoever, he would carry an untraceable firearm on that operation, not the one that leads straight back to him in the event that something goes wrong. It may be a bit of a leap, but it's a lot more plausible than someone cleaning up a crime scene out in the middle of nowhere.

Because if he finds himself carrying out an off-book operation that could get him in trouble if identified, and also potentially needs a weapon to carry out that operation, then if he's got any sense whatsoever, he would carry an untraceable firearm on that operation, not the one that leads straight back to him in the event that something goes wrong. It may be a bit of a leap, but it's a lot more plausible than someone cleaning up a crime scene out in the middle of nowhere.

This!
Far more logical than your own logic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex ma whitmer

That's probably a bad idea.

a

Sad but true.
Spending weeks on trying to clean up a crime scene, while preventing it actually makes more sense.
Just like wearing gloves during an illegal action is not weird either.

Okay thanks. So let's say he brings an untraceable gun instead. If he were to report the shootout after it happened, then his superiors are going to ask him why didn't he take action with his own gun. He could just say he didn't bring his gun.

However, he probably still wouldn't want to report it in case the hacking came out. Cause if he calls it in and the villain is arrested, he would have to get rid of that illegal gun be brought then, right? Or made it look like it was one of the villain's who got away. But his DNA could still be on it, if he doesn't find a way to get rid of it, right?

Also, he calls the police and ID's the villain, what if the villain, knowing that his computer has been hacked, which is what lead to the shootout, report that his computer was hacked... and an investigation of the hacking leads back to the MC?

Then the MC is guilty of hacking and his testimony in identifying the villains, is inadmissible legally. So wouldn't the MC not call it in and report it all, so no hacking can be lead back to him as a result of being there?

Basically the reason why I had trouble believing the MC would bring his own gun and gloves, is cause all he did was hack into someone's information and decided to tail that person to see if they were involved in the case that he wants to crack. He was not expecting any shootouts to happen, and was not expecting to get anyone killed. So it seems like a reach that he would plan to bring an illegal gun and gloves, ahead of time, since all he was planning on doing is tail someone on his own time basically. I mean if a cop decides to tail a suspect on his own time, does he actually think "I better bring an untraceable gun and gloves, just in case"?

If he reports it, he needs a reason for being there other than the hacking. He could say that he was working with the other cop who was shot to death. However, let's say his superiors ask him at what time and place did the other cop meet up to talk about the case and decide to go off on their own. If the MC tells lies that turn out that the other cop has alibis on, then the MC will be caught in those lies. So wouldn't it be better to not report it, and take off, not leaving any evidence, since he brought his gun, and then therefore, not get caught in any lies later?

Also even if he brings his own gun that is untraceable, and gloves, what about his DNA? How is he going to get rid of that at the scene?